C.S. Lewis called pride “the essential vice, the utmost evil … the complete anti-God state of mind”. Solomon wrote, “Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord; be assured, he will not go unpunished.”
Obadiah is the shortest book in the Hebrew Bible, so it doesn’t take the prophet more than two verses to get to Edom’s problem. Yes, it’s pride. Pride that metastasized into hatred of their brothers. Pride that pulled the wool over their own eyes and made the Edomites believe they were untouchable. Pride that convinced them they could put one over on the God who had decreed “the older will serve the younger”. “Not so,” said Edom.
It was the word of God. Of course they were wrong.
Background
The last recorded contact between Jacob and his brother Esau was at their father’s funeral in Genesis 35. Esau’s descendants settled in the hill country of Seir because the family’s combined possessions and livestock were too great for the land of Canaan to support them living side by side. Those descendants became the nation of Edom.
Relations between Edom and Israel first became acrimonious on Israel’s way to Canaan from Egypt. Moses politely requested passage through Edom’s territory. The king of Edom refused, and even sent out the army to make sure Israel did not trespass, so Israel turned back in obedience to God’s command. After that, prophecies of Edom’s eventual dispossession commenced, first with Balaam. In the early days of the united kingdom, Edom was an enemy that God routed before Saul. David eventually subdued Edom and built Israelite garrisons in their territory to manage it from afar. Years later, Edom allied with Jehoshaphat and Ahab against Moab, but during the reign of Jehoram, Edom finally revolted against their brothers in Judah and crowned its own king, and ever after fought with Judah. Amaziah won a great victory over Edom at Sela and renamed it.
So then, Edom bore an unwarranted and unwise grudge against Israel going back centuries. Later, God would tell his prophet Malachi, “I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated.” That much-misunderstood line has delighted determinists for centuries.
Author and Date
Obadiah means “worshiper [or servant] of YHWH”. Scripture is full of Obadiahs; it must have been a very common name in Israel. As many as twelve different Obadiahs spanned a period of more than 600 years. His prophecy tells us nothing more about him than his name, so we have no certain way to connect him to any of his historical namesakes mentioned in Kings or Chronicles.
Dating Obadiah is no easy task. There are two major schools of thought about when the book was written, and they run to extremes. Both depend on internal evidence. Chuck Swindoll likes the 840s BC, which would make Obadiah the earliest prophetic writer of all, contemporary with Elijah/Elisha. He thinks verses 10-14 depict the invasion of Jerusalem in 2 Chronicles 21:16-17, and speculates that Edom was an unnamed party to it.
Alternatively, multiple OT writers condemn Edom for participating in a scenario several centuries later that harmonizes precisely with Obadiah’s description: Judah’s “final punishment” at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar just prior to the Babylonian exile. The later date for Obadiah is the “near-consensus” scholarly position, making Obadiah (along with Joel) a prime candidate for the last pre-exilic prophet.
Organization and Content
Obadiah is a single chapter with four obvious subject matter divisions:
- The coming destruction of Edom (v1-9)
- Reasons for Edom’s judgment (v10-14)
- Edom as a cautionary tale for the nations (v15-18)
- The former territory of Edom during the millennial reign (v19-21)
Value to Modern Readers
The main value of Obadiah’s prophecy to modern readers is to remind us that God detests pride, and prizes unity between brothers, not envy and dissension.
It’s also worth noting that he keeps his promises. Even the best-designed defenses cannot withstand a determined and well-provisioned siege. Though Edom felt itself invincible, it was not the case. Scholars believe a Mesopotamian-style relief carving in eastern slope of the cliff face at Sela depicts a conquering Babylonian monarch, inconclusively identified with Nabonidus (555-539 BC). After Babylon’s invasion, roving bands of Arabs pushed the remaining Edomites out of their ancestral home entirely, as prophesied by both Obadiah and Ezekiel. Edom then settled in the former territory of Judah south of Beth-Zur (later called Idumea). John Hyrcanus (164-104 BC), high priest and ruler of Judah for thirty years during the intertestamental period, finally conquered Idumea and forcibly converted the Idumeans to Judaism, after which time the former Edom retained no national presence at all. Judah absorbed the remaining Idumeans over the next few hundred years through intermarriage.
Today, Edom has effectively disappeared as an identifiable people group. God keeps his promises.
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